Archive for Adobe
April 30, 2008 at 11:52 pm · Filed under AIR (Apollo), Actionscript 2, Adobe, Flash, Flex, Mobile Development, OSFlash, Remoting, Tech
Life just got a lot more interesting for those who make a living working with Flash:
http://blogs.adobe.com/open/2008/04/the_open_screen_project.html
As a part of the announcement, Adobe is publishing exactly how the SWF format works without restrictions, and removing all other barriers to getting Flash on the widest range of devices. Set top/cable boxes, all mobile phones, televisions, your appliances... anything technical, really. Even those devices without a screen and/or user interface. Bill Perry does a great job of going into more detail on the implications for devices on his blog.
Ryan Stewart has a great post explaining all the implications of this announcement, for devices and desktop computers alike. He goes into more detail on the several parts of the announcement, so it is worth the read.
As someone who makes their living from the Flash ecosystem, you should care greatly about this announcement. It may not seem like it to a non-developer, but this is huge for anyone who knows how to use Flash. The thought of having Flash everywhere is finally a reality for those who want to include it in their products as a user interface layer, or even to allow developers to control the product using ActionScript. And this means that your capabilities to design, develop, and then deploy your Flash experiences just became more marketable and useful.
Lastly, as a member of the Flash community, you should also be excited about the implications this has on open source projects such as SWX, AMFPHP, and the like. The more open the specifications surrounding the various parts of the Flash ecosystem, the easier it is for members of the community to create tools and open source projects which contribute to the growth and prominence of said ecosystem... and make all of our lives as participants in that ecosystem that much more interesting and fun.
April 18, 2008 at 1:07 pm · Filed under Actionscript 2, Actionscript 3, Adobe, Books, Flash, Flex, Mobile Development, OSFlash, Personal
About a month ago Aral Balkan mentioned he wasn't finding the time to write a chapter on SWX for an upcoming Friends of Ed book, so I offered to step in to write the chapter for The Essential Guide to Open Source Flash Development on SWX for Flash and Flash Lite.
It is an honor to be a part of this book with such open source Flash community members as Chris Allen, John Grden, Wade Arnold, Carlos Ulloa, Moses Gunesch and others. You can read bios of all the authors on the book's bio page.
I am wrapping up the last round of review this weekend, and the book should be published and available in July. You can pre-order the book on Amazon.com today for about $31.
April 8, 2008 at 3:25 pm · Filed under Actionscript 2, Actionscript 3, Adobe, Flash, Flex, Remoting
We knew this was coming for some time now and today Adobe finally released the 9.0.124 Flash Player which includes security updates that have an effect on any sites you may have built using AMFPHP, SWX, or any other Flash remoting services.
At issue is the crossdomain.xml file -- you'll need to add or update the file to ensure your services continue to function properly. Wade Arnold, a contributor to AMFPHP (which is also included with and used in SWX) has a great write-up on how to fix AMFPHP/SWX including a sample you can download and edit for your domain on his blog.
More details about the player, and the newly revamped Flash Player Download Center, can be found on Justin Everett-Church's blog posting about Flash Player 9.0.124. Adobe Developer Center has a helpful write-up about the exact changes made. Lastly, John Dowdell has an informative post with lots of helpful links.
Adobe has done a great job with communicating to the community that this change would be coming, and has provided a lot of resources to ensure sites were not affected. Today's information push is just another example of the great communication. Kudos, Flash Player team!
March 19, 2008 at 2:23 pm · Filed under Adobe, Apple, Flash, Mobile Development, Tech
Mike Downey, a Platform Evangelist at Adobe, just posted the entire, correct story of Flash on the iPhone. As mentioned in his post, a lot of people have been blogging about how Flash is coming to the iPhone. However, the reports of Adobe CEO's comments about Flash support on the iPhone yesterday were not necessarily complete and accurate, so Mike has taken upon himself to clear the air.
Worth the read, if nothing else, to help guide you through the hype to what the real story is...
Update: Bill Perry, also from Adobe, has also posted an even a more detailed account of the facts on his Flash Devices blog.
December 17, 2007 at 7:50 pm · Filed under Actionscript 3, Adobe, Flash, Flex, OSFlash
Go ActionScript Animation Platform has just been released by the talented (and former Portland resident) Moses Gunesch. You may know Moses as the developer of FUSE, one of the first (and best) ActionScript 2 animation engines. Moses is back with a community-led animation platform initiative which has been in the works for some time.
You can read more about it on the open source project's blog and website, but here is a quick overview from the project's website:
"The Go ActionScript Animation Platform ("GOASAP") is a lightweight, portable set of generic base classes for buliding AS3 animation tools. Go provides structure and core functionality, but leaves the specifics to you.
"Go intends to support both linear (tweened) and physics animation, and could theoretically be extended to other base types, perhaps Collada animation for example. However at the time of this writing Go is at an early stage and the physics side is yet to be developed. Parallel and sequenced tweens are already supported by several optional utility classes: PlayableGroup, Sequence, and SequenceCA – a sequence with "custom advance" options."
October 22, 2007 at 9:53 pm · Filed under Adobe, FITC, Flash
Today at FITC Hollywood Richard Galvan, Adobe Flash Product Manager, gave a sneak peek at an upcoming feature in Flash 10 / CS4 / "Diesel". I am really surprised that I haven't read about this new feature anywhere else, so I thought I would post for those who couldn't make it to the conference.
That said, I was by no means expecting anything big to come from Adobe at FITC, mainly because they just held MAX where they previewed dozens of new applications and technologies. But, we were blessed with one new sneak:
The next version of the Flash IDE, Flash 10 "Diesel", will feature a brand new timeline animation model. What's the difference? There will no longer be a need for keyframes. Yes, it sounds drastic, but based on the demo, this is going to make timeline animations _much_ easier to work with and make Flash much easier for beginners.
In short you will be able to select an object on the stage, right-click and choose "Add Motion/Shape Tween", and the timeline layer with the object will turn red to signify that it now contains a tween. Then you move the object (if you want to animate its motion) to create the end state. Want to extend the length of the tween? Just drag the timeline layer out over additional frames. Basically, this model completely fixes broken tweens -- you can no longer have a tween that is "broken" because it is missing a keyframe because tweens are no longer tied to keyframes.
An additional cool feature with this is that when you move the object to the end state, a dotted line shows up along the path of the tween, showing you exactly where the object is going to move to. Want to change the path? Just move the object and the line automatically updates. Not good enough? Adjust the line just like any other curved line in Flash/Illustrator making it more rounded, or increase the length by adjusting the end point to your liking. You can also choose the Transform tool and use it to squish/expand or otherwise transform your tween path.
Maybe I missed something and this had been announced at MAX as well, but if not, I am really surprised that I haven't seen this up on MXNA yet!
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